Heino Eller - Complete Piano Music, Vol. 3 (Sten Lassmann)

Information

Composer: Heino Eller

• Ten Lyric Pieces
• Study in A flat major (1918)
• Study in G flat major (1919)
• Study in G flat major (1917)
• Preludes
• Piano Sonata No. 4

Sten Lassmann, piano

Date: 2013

Label: Toccata

https://toccataclassics.com/product/eller-piano-music-3/

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Review

Third disc of piano works by a legend of Estonian musical life

In any account of modern Estonian music, Heino Eller occupies a central position both creatively and culturally, his substantial output mirroring the troubled history of his nation. This third volume of piano music features one of his most imposing works, the Ten Lyric Pieces (1942-43), subsuming a range of expression within its nominally Griegian archetypes and culminating in a Theme and Variations which (contrary to Sten Lassmann’s conviction in his detailed booklet-note) takes the competing emotional strands through to a logical culmination. Never before recorded in its entirety, this is major statement of intent in the face of adversity.

The other works provide a conspectus of Eller’s piano music over four decades. Written at the close of the First World War, the Three Studies find the composer toying with aspects of French impressionism – which, in the Five Preludes of a decade later, has extended to the more elliptical thinking of Roussel and even late Satie. Most substantial is the Fourth Sonata (1957-58), a powerful reassessment of the classical format proceeding from a tensile sonata Allegro, via a whimsical yet eloquent Andante, to a Vivo finale that energetically combines rondo and variation elements on its way to a resolute close. A musicological expert on this music, Sten Lassmann is no less authoritative as an interpreter and benefits from warm as well as wide-ranging sound. Those who have yet to investigate Eller’s piano output should certainly begin here.

-- Richard Whitehouse, Gramophone

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Heino Eller (7 March 1887 – 16 June 1970) was an Estonian composer and teacher. Eller was born in Tartu and studied violin at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory between 1907 and 1920. During his time as a professor (1920-40) at the Tartu Higher School for Music, Eller formed the Tartu school of composition, which gave rise to many composers, including Eduard Tubin. From 1940 to 1970 he was a professor of composition at the Tallinn Conservatory. As a composer, Eller's musical language contains many national traits, but he was also influenced by styles such as impressionism and expressionism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heino_Eller

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Sten Lassmann (born 26 May 1982) is an Estonian pianist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sten_Lassmann

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